


In Recovery

by dietcokeenthusiast



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Language, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5325464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dietcokeenthusiast/pseuds/dietcokeenthusiast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things get ugly for the Sole Survivor when a routine firefight goes wrong. Luckily for her, she has someone very special watching out for her. Even if she is a terrible cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Recovery

_First one down._

Ava let herself breathe as the plasma shot burned a hole right through the scribe’s chest. It was a perfect shot. She ducked her head the dumpster as the rest of the patrol fired shots in where they thoughts the attack might have come from. _Good. They’re nice and scared. Serves the bastards right_.

When the shots quieted down, she peeked out from behind to scope out who was left. Two knights in power armor, one without, and an initiate who was checking on the scribe. This was cake; unusual considering the kind of work PAM usually had her doing. Still, any chance to blast the ten foot pole out of the Brotherhood of Steel’s collective asses was welcome.

She took a glance over at Piper, who looked back over at her inquisitively. She knew Piper must be itching to get things started; subtlety was never really her thing, which led to its share of “miscommunication” when they first started traveling together. Didn’t take her too long to realize that Ava liked playing things cool, and that she could work around that.

Reloading a new set of plasma cartridges, she blew Piper a kiss; partially because she wasn’t going to get a little thing like a firefight get in the way of being sweet on her lady, partially for a signal. Piper returned the gesture, and darted out into the square, pistol blazing.

“There she is!”

“Ad Victoriam!”

 _Bought it._ While the patrol turned their fire to focus on the nimble reporter who just popped out, Ava had the perfect shot. First priority had to be the tin cans – they’d be able to clean up the other two without breaking a sweat. Ava held her breath, and fired as fast as her plasma rifle let her. Three shots had blasted the helmet off one of the knight’s heads, and a fourth put them down.

She turned her focus to the second knight, who had turned to face her. She ducked again as she heard the gatling laser warm up, and before long the air above her head glowed red with laser fire. Waiting until she heard the sounds of reloading, she popped out again, and fired. She manage to blast away the knight’s chestpiece and one of their greaves before the cartridge was emptied. Fortunately for her, the knight made a break for it. _Must have messed him up worse than I thought._

Once she reloaded and stuck her head out again, she could see the unarmored knight dead on the ground, and now Piper was advancing on the enlistee. Standing up to get a better look, she saw Piper pistol whip them to the ground before firing a shot into their head. Smirking, Ava called out to Piper.

“Nice one, Pipes!”

Piper grinned at her. “You weren’t so bad yourself, Blue. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take down one of those walking trash cans so fast,” she paused. “Speaking of, wasn’t there another one hanging around?”

“Oh, that’s right!” Ava strutted into the middle of the square where the patrol had been, and fired a shot into the air. “Come on! The railroad just wants to give you a present!” She taunted, arms outstretched as if to dare the survivor to take a shot.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Piper’s face scrunched up in concern. “They’re not dead yet.”

Ava chuckled. “Relax, Piper. We’ve taken out a whole ship full of them!” She shouted the last sentence, hoping to provoke them out of their hiding spot. “One pile of scrap metal in broken armor doesn’t have anything on us,” she winked. “Promise, we’re good.”

Piper smiled somewhat uneasily, when suddenly her expression changed and her eyes widened. “Blue! Behind you!” She shrieked. Before Ava could turn around, there was a sickening crunch, the feeling of something hard hitting the side of her face, and a pain in her head like nothing she’d felt before. She stumbled forward and was down on all fours, pawing at the ground, trying to figure out where she was. Then, there was another crunch, and another sharp pain in the side of her head. Her vision started to blur, and she was hit by a wave of intense nausea. There was a salty, metallic taste in her mouth, and it felt like there was… gravel in there too?

Falling on her back, she saw a large figure standing over her, but couldn’t make out any of the details. She heard gunshots and angry shouting, when the large figure stumbled backward. She couldn’t figure out what was happening. All she could focus on was the excruciating pain in her head, as though a super mutant were trying to pry her skull open. She coughed as the salty fluid hit the back of her throat.

She heard a familiar voice, and saw a blurry, reddish figure. “Blue! Oh god no, please, stay with me Blue! You can’t leave. You can’t-”

The voice and the figure both disappeared into blackness.

\---

The naked lightbulb Ava saw when she first woke up felt like staring directly at the sun, only with an excruciating headache.

She jerked her head away, and immediately regretted it as the sudden movement sent pain shooting throughout her head. Slowly reaching her hand up, she felt several sets of stitches all over the right side of her face. She groaned. _Fuck, I hope it’s not nearly as bad as it feels…_

Taking a deep breath, she slowly sat up in the bed to take a look around, wincing. She couldn’t help but notice the quilt looked an awful lot like the one she had knit for Piper when she finally managed to salvage enough yarn. It wasn’t until the saw the desk with the terminal, an overfilled ashtray, and at least ten empty Nuka Cola bottles that she realized where she was. _That’d explain why the quilt looked familiar._

“You’re up!” She heard a young girl’s voice exclaim. Turning her attention to the stairs, she saw Nat grinning at her.

“Hey, kid,” Ava replied creakily, gesturing for Nat to come closer, giving a friendly hug. “So, weird question, how long have I been here? I don’t exactly remember much.”

“You’ve been asleep for about... two days. You were _really_ hurt.”

“Oh, damn. That must have been bad.“

“Piper said the doctor told her you’d be okay. It’s probably a good thing that there’s no mirrors here, though.”

Ava nodded, and tried not to let on how much that last comment stung. She was always a bit more vain than she’d like to admit, and now she was terrified to even imagine how she looked right now. “Thanks for the update, kid.”

“No problem.” Nat continued, oblivious. “Piper’s going to be so excited when she hears!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup. She was waiting for you there the whole time. Only left to get food. She even got something other than candy.” Ava tried to ignore the pain in her body when she chuckled. Then, Nat’s tone suddenly got a bit harsher. “You really made her upset. You better start being more careful out there.”

Ava winced. “Can’t I be awake for at least fifteen minutes before I get the lecture?” _From a kid, no less?_

“I’m serious, lady,” she stated firmly. “My sis likes you a _lot_ , so don’t die on her.”

Ava nodded slowly. “Right, sorry, Nat.” Whatever happened must have gotten pretty ugly. Nat was always protective of her big sister, but she sounded like she meant business.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. “Nat?” Ava’s heart skipped a beat when she heard that familiar voice. “Nat, are you here?”

“Yeah, sis.” Nat called back. “I’m just upstairs.”

“Nat, I told you not to go up there while Ava’s asleep!” Piper scolded.

“Trust me sis, I think you want to see this.”

There was a pause, and then the sound of hurried footsteps. A few seconds later, she saw Piper come up the stairs, hands over her mouth in shock.

“Oh my god! Blue!” She took a step towards Ava, as though she wanted to pounce on her, but she stopped herself and approached more slowly. “You’re… you’re awake!”

“Hey beautiful,” Ava replied with a smile. She didn’t even particularly care how sore it made her jaw. “Did you miss me?”

Piper chuckled uneasily. “You could say that. You’re my best source of the material for the Publick, y’know? Need my number one source alive!” Her laugh was forced, her voice was heavy with emotion, and she could see her eyes starting to well up. “Oh Blue, you had me so worried…”

“Hey, come here,” Ava beckoned. She sat up in bed a bit more, and pulled Piper into an embrace. By this point, Piper was sobbing. She spoke gentle reassurances to Piper as she held her and stroked her hair. “Shhh, it’s okay Pipes, I’m right here.” She kissed Piper on the head, or at least as well as she could manage with her face stitched up. Nat reassuringly placed a hand on her sister’s back.

When Piper pulled away, her eyes were red and puffy, and she seemed almost embarrassed about it. “Uh, sorry, Blue. Doc Sun said you’d be fine and everything, just needed to rest, but then you’ve been asleep for two days and I’ve been worried and whenever you did something in your sleep, I’m freaking out like ‘geeze is that normal?’“ she sniffled.

“I’m okay, Piper.” A thin smile spread across Ava’s lips. “It’s the worst headache I’ve ever had I my life, but I’m okay.” She didn’t actually know whether that was true or not, but for now it was good enough that it seemed to make Piper look a bit more relieved.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Nat declared, seeming to understand the two probably wanted their privacy. She made her exit, but not before mouthing “watch it” in Ava’s direction.

“So did you get the make of the sentry bot that ran me over?” Ava joked.

Piper shook her head. “Brotherhood, remember?”

Ava took a moment. “Really? Damn, I must have gotten sloppy.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to talk about that some time, Blue.” There was a sense of warning in that tone. “Trash can got you with the end of their rifle a couple times. They got you really bad before I dealt with them.”

Ava took a moment to think if she really wanted to know. “How bad, exactly?”

Piper took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. “ _Bad_. You were seriously bleeding, and you lost a lot of teeth. I tried to scrape them all up, see if Doc Sun could do anything with them, because I figured maybe he picked up some of that reconstructive stuff from Crocker.” She checked with her tongue; he must have been able to do a pretty good job, or at least found some good fakes, because there were only a couple of molars missing. “I tried to carry you as far as I could, when we found a caravan. They didn’t shoot the screaming, hysterical reporter on sight, thank god, and they helped us get to Diamond City. They even gave you enough stimpacks to keep you alive until the doc could do real surgery.”

“Diamond City? Why not Carrington?”

Piper shook her head. “Blue there was no way you would have…” she stopped to compose herself. “He was too far away, and you needed help right then.” A small, hesitant smile crossed her lips. “I think I got him mad at me. He didn’t exactly look too happy when I hugged him after he said you’d be fine. At least that’s a new one for the big list of things I’ve done to piss people off.”

Ava chuckled, and immediately winced. “Glad to see you kept up old habits while I was out.”

Piper laughed. “You had visitors, too. Codsworth was practically inconsolable, Cait dropped off some whiskey for when you woke up, Nick and Preston came to check up on you, even Des showed up!”

Ava was floored. “Desdemona actually came here?”

“Yup! Got to add another one to my list, too, because she reeeeally wasn’t too happy with me about the whole flying the Railroad flag thing. Got a big lecture about being discreet, endangering operations, blah blah blah.” Piper grinned. “Still, she was pretty worried about you. She even brought us some of these!” Ava half-grinned as Piper grabbed a carton of cigarettes from the desk. “She knows where to find the good stuff, too! I’ll try to save some for you for when your face is okay. No promises, though.”

Ava suddenly stiffened, and again ran her fingers over the stitches. She had been so excited to see Piper again she had completely forgotten the decidedly unflattering description Nat provided of her face. “Pipes, be honest with me. How… how bad is it?”

Without any hesitation, Piper leaned in to place a soft kiss on her lips, brushing Ava’s hair out of her face. “Still as much of a doll as ever.” Ava immediately pulled her back in for another kiss. Even though it had only been two days she wasn’t even conscious for, Piper’s lips still felt like coming home; warm, familiar, and just perfect. When Piper finally broke away, she took a moment to cradle her face in her hands, a contented sigh escaping her lips.

_How the hell did Piper ever think she was the lucky one?_

For a while, the two didn’t exchange any words as Ava caressed Piper’s face, softly brushing her thumb across her cheek. Before too long, though, she was finally starting to notice how hungry she was. Apparently being out for two days meant you missed your share of meals. “Hey, Pipes, you hungry? I think I’m going to check to see what I can cook.”

Ava tried to get up, but felt Piper’s hand on her shoulder. “Yeah, not happening, Blue. You’re going to stay there and let chef Piper take care of the rest. Hopefully my cooking doesn’t finish what the Brotherhood started. I’m at least… 95% sure that won’t happen.”

“Knowing you, you better start writing me a nice obituary then,” Ava teased as Piper headed downstairs.

“Oh, har har!” She called back. Piper came back a while later with a couple of bowls of instamash. Piper’s usual cooking prowess was on display, as despite the directions just being “add hot water”, she still managed to burn it. Despite that, after not having eaten for two days, it tasted like heaven. At least so long as she was able to ignore the fact she probably wouldn’t be eating anything else for the next week or two.

The next few hours, Ava bothered Piper while she was hard at work at her terminal, asking how everyone had been and what had happened since she was asleep. Apparently Nick had a new missing person’s case he was working on. She’d have to check that out next time she needed a break from the Railroad. As the hours grew late, she saw Piper shut off the terminal, lean back in her chair, and pull the cap down over her eyes.

“Piper, what are you doing?”

“Thought I’d try to get some shut eye. I’m right here if you need anything, dollface.”

Ava ignored the warmth rising to her face. “You’ve been sleeping in that chair the whole time? I really looked that scary?”

“No! No, of course not, Blue!” She stammered as she practically fell out from the chair. “You were unconscious, and I didn’t want to accidentally take one of your stitches out or anything. Geeze.”

“Well, I’m conscious now, and I’ll risk it” Ava declared as she shifted to make room for Piper, which was no small effort. It was obvious Piper had no real desire her to fight her, as she had barely finished talking before Piper was hanging her coat on the chair and shimmying out of her boots and pants. She nestled into her usual spot, arm wrapped around Ava’s waist and her head underneath her chin. Ava savored the familiar scent of printer’s ink and perfume as she hugged her close. She felt Piper slip a hand up the back of her shirt, practically purring as she scratched all the right spots.

“Mmm, maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. I could get used to being spoiled like this,” she teased.

“Yeah yeah, don’t get too comfy, Blue,” Piper smirked. “We’ve got a lot of work to do when you heal up. Preston and Des are probably stacking up missions as we speak.”

Ava kissed Piper’s forehead. “I don’t know what they’d do without me.” Piper just nestled closer to her, her breath warm against her neck.

She finally was starting to drift off to sleep, when she heard Piper’s voice. “Ava?” It wasn’t often she used her real name when talking to her.

She blinked. “What is it, babe?”

“I need you to promise me that you’re going to cool off when we’re out there.”

“What do you mean?

“Look, I know you’re good at what you do. Real good. That doesn’t mean you’re invincible, though. It’s one thing to put yourself out there to help people, but that doesn’t mean you need to take stupid chances like you did.”

“Hey, it got him out of hiding, didn’t it?” Ava joked.

“Oh no, you’re not giving me the smartass act on this one.” Ava recognized that tone. It was determined, righteous, and a little bit pissed off. The same tone that came out when she knew there was a truth to unearth or an injustice to battle. It was one of the most beautiful things about Piper, but Ava wasn’t used to having it directed at her. “It’s not like if you died the Commonwealth would just be ‘Uh oh, another dead merc! Guess that’s just life, we got plenty of those to spare!’” She sat up in bed. “You’re not some lone wasteland drifter who the world isn’t going to miss, or some selfish jerk the world will be better off without.” Piper was gesturing emphatically with every point. “You’re the general of the Minutemen! The best damn agent the Railroad’s got! You’ve risked your life to save so many people from the Insitute, super mutants, raiders, everything. This place _needs_ you, Ava.”

She held on to Ava’s wrist. “Not to mention it… it’d be a lot lonelier if you weren’t around.” The determination in Piper’s voice gave way to neediness; an almost desperate plea. “So promise me, Blue, that you’re not going to put yourself in danger just to show off anymore. Because you’ll hurt a lot of people if you ever went away.”

Despite everything she had been through, the prospect of ever hurting Piper hurt her way worse than any beat down by the Brotherhood. She tilted Piper’s head up, and kissed her deeply. “I promise.”


End file.
